The indelible presence of the Nahuatl language in modern Spanish

Nahuatl is a language from Mexico, belonging to the Uto-Aztecan group of languages. It was the language of the Aztecs, as well as of the Pipil, an ancient Mexican people that settled in the western area of what is now El Salvador. Nahuatl has made an indelible mark into modern Spanish, especially to the varieties of this language as spoken in Mesoamerica.

Nahuatl is still spoken by more than two and a half million people and used as a cultural vehicle, particularly in Mexico.

Reading from the archives of elcastellano.org/noticias I found a very interesting article about the join publication of a Diccionario del náhuatl en el español de México (Dictionary of Nahuatl terms in Mexican Spanish) by the Government of the Federal District of Mexico and the UNAM (The Autonomic National University of Mexico).

The article at the site referred to here is by Juan Solis from El Universal. It reports that the dictionary incorporates more than 2000 Nahuatl lexical and toponymic terms. It adds that according to the UNAM academic Carlos Montemayor, the coordinator in charge of the dictionary’s publication, the new lexical book also includes Nahuatl names and botanical terms.

This Dictionary of Nahuatl terms in Mexican Spanish is a great achievement towards registering, studying, maintaining and preserving for future generations the linguistic wealth that the ancient Native American tongues such as Nahuatl have given to the Spanish language.

PS. To learn more about the nature of Nahuatl, visit http://www.omniglot.com/writing/nahuatl.htm

The terms ‘Latino’ and ‘Latino Spanish’

The Spanish language term latino (‘Latino‘) has been used and abused for quite a while. Words like these can become widely popular and used very frequently, in most cases without the users making a little effort to find out about the true nature of such terms.

The word latino is used in Spanish as a short form of latinoamericano – a Latin American – i.e. a person from a Latin American country. Thus, in Spanish the term is used in a correct manner. However, the usage of this term in English is incorrect as there is a proper translation for the word latino into this language: Latin. In any case whenever there is a need to refer to the people from Latin America is more appropriate to name them by their own nationalities: Mexican, Brazilian, Chilean, Costa Rican, etc, or collectively as Latin Americans.

The term Latin American is appropriately used for distinguishing the people from the New World as not coming from Anglo America. The term is properly used to relate to this cultural aspect. Latin American is a term that has come to mean someone who is non Anglo American, and is therefore quite appropriately used to cover anyone who comes from a Latin American country independently of what language they speak.

Referring to Spanish speaking people from Spanish speaking countries of Latin America as ‘Hispanics’ is not only wrong and inappropriate – it hardly means anything at all – it’s better to use always the term Latin American as it’s more meaningful and culturally appropriate.

The term Latino – as used quite often in English and applied to language or people – is wrong, inappropriate and lacking in real meaning and because of this, its usage should be avoided.

Labeling any perceived type of language as ‘Latino Spanish’ or even Latin Spanish doesn’t mean anything, as the name for the Spanish from the New World is American Spanish.  Misleading labels lack academic validity. Thus the name American Spanish must be used when referring to the varieties of this language as coming from the American continent.

Digitalized libraries from Spanish speaking countries are great online treasures

As a Spanish language teaching specialist I need to always be surrounded by books, magazines, newspapers… written material of any kind related with or about the Spanish language, preferably in Spanish.

Before the advent of the digital era, most written documents were only available as hard copies, i.e. printed on paper. Nowadays, lots of cultural institutions from everywhere – especially libraries – are bringing their written treasures online for the benefit of humanity.

Today I navigated the august pages of the Biblioteca Nacional de España (The National Library of Spain) and found to my surprise, that they still haven’t put their books online; however they say on the website, that they’re planning to do so soon. Nevertheless, they have a hemeroteca digital which includes newspapers and magazines from Spain that were first published the 1800’s.

Also today I visited the Biblioteca Ayacucho. Here there are a number of treasures from Spanish and Hispanic American literature, in PDF format, which can be downloaded for free. I downloaded the book Comentarios Reales by Garcilaso de la Vega from this website. This is a classic book that I’ve been searching for a long time. I finally found it and it didn’t cost me a cent!

I will be adding here some more ‘bibliotecas digitales’ and other sites containing digitalized written material as I get to find them. The only point of concern is that getting to find these websites and exploring what they offer (and writing a post like this), is consuming my time as if there isn’t other things to do; such as taking a break from the pc, which I must… 🙂

Some last words though…I have added these two magnificent websites to my blogroll here. Enjoy!

The intrinsic value of speaking other languages and of being bilingual

A few days ago I read an article in The Age connected to the importance of languages in general and second language learning, in particular, for individuals and people. The article also says that 2008 has been declared the International Year of Languages by the United Nations.

A language of any type, especially a natural one – i.e. a language learnt and spoken natively by people – is an amazing tool for creating and exchanging meaning, with no parallel in any other area of human activity involved in the civilization process.

A language, then, as a special way of organizing thought in the spoken and written modes and as a communication tool is a very important human feature that deserves to be learned, or at least be studied by non natives of that language. Reading ‘Empires of the Word a Language History of the World’ by Nicholas Ostler has helped me to understand these aspects in a clearer manner.

In Ostler’s book there are detailed descriptions of the role that languages – used either as native or second mean of communication – have played in shaping human history since the most ancient of times until now. Since the very early beginnings, individuals and social groups, living in normal conditions, have taken as a goal to learn the languages of their neighbors as a way of conducting trade, commerce and diplomacy or simply for showing goodwill to speakers of other tongues.

In modern times people still learn languages following similar paths as the ones described above. However, they also learn a second (or third or forth…) language for fun, namely, the great intellectual satisfaction that is obtained by communicating in the same language with people whose native tongue is different to ours’.

I became a bilingual person in my youth. Now I can exchange ideas in at least five other languages. Nevertheless, I consider myself a truly bilingual person due to the fact that English and Spanish are the languages that I use on a daily basis.

Both Spanish and English are essential parts of my identity now. In both languages I find an immense array of intellectual satisfaction. I can move in the two worlds with ease. This is something of great value if we take into consideration that each of these languages are repositories of vast bodies of language and knowledge to keep a letters’ lover attached to them forever.

I don’t know any longer what the feeling of being a monolingual person is. What I do know however, it’s that knowing other languages and being fully bilingual is a feeling which is not only unique; it’s humanizing to the highest degree.